Archive for March, 2013

So my 12 year old daughter, Haley, and I arrived in Austin last night, after the worst customs delay I have ever seen at Toronto Pearson (anybody ever have to wait in “lounge Q” in order to be called by flight number to queue up OUTSIDE the customs hall???), a cancelled connection in Houston, a [...]

Dr. Anderson told me back in 2005 that one of her goals was to make sure that I didn’t think about my voice every day. But I do think about it every day, because I am grateful for it. In a week, I return to Harvard for the “50th anniversary of women at Harvard Business [...]

The National Spasmodic Dysphonia Association (“NSDA”) is co-funding a grant to study possible genetic causes of spasmodic dysphonia. Dr. Tatiana Fuchs at Mount Sinai Medical Center is using a technique called exome sequencing to screen all genes in a family affected by spasmodic dysphonia, in order to identify a common gene mutation. Hmmm, one of our [...]

My other favourite blog, Rolling Around in My Head, by Dave Hinsburger, recently sparked a lively discussion about whether or not to advocate for a person in a wheelchair when someone else is blocking their view (at a concert, in this case). It made me think of how I felt when I couldn’t speak above [...]

And not in a good way. As noted Toronto lawyer and mediator Tom Allen describes in the video below, “if you have spasmodic dysphonia, you have to take a separate breath for every word that you speak.” Spasmodic dysphonia patients often sound hoarse, breathy, and as if they were forcing each individual word out. Of [...]

One of the most difficult aspects of losing my voice was being unable to identify a voice specialist in Canada who could help me. 6 months after I lost my voice, I sought a third opinion and was finally referred to Dr. Jennifer Anderson at St. Mike’s. This was after a couple of [...]

Great article , audio, and video Friday in the Wall Street Journal, which talks about voice therapy and the medical procedures that can restore voices when conventional speech therapy fails. Speech therapy sometimes works, and if that fails vocal cords can be injected with collagen substances that “plump up” the vocal cords. If the vocal [...]

Nope, this post is not about voice. It’s a about corneas. But it sure has parallels to voice – lack of a national registry, screwed up management by Health Canada, patients waiting in the dark (unfortunately, in this case, literally), and a donor who just might make a difference. My friend is gradually going blind from [...]

About 95% of the time, I can easily forget that I have a voice disability. You’d never know I have a paralyzed vocal cord unless I told you. Except if we’re in one of Toronto’s many loud, loud restaurants, with the hard surfaces, booming music, high ceilings, and everyone screaming to be heard over everyone [...]

In this TEDTalks video, former TV show host and movie reviewer Roger Ebert talks about what it is like to live without a voice (in a word: isolating), and how digital technology (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) is now helping him communicate and engage with his friends. It’s not the same as having a real voice [...]